


relax

by owlsshadows



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, First years as third years, Gen, No Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28171068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlsshadows/pseuds/owlsshadows
Summary: 8 seconds. That is all the time a player has to serve after the whistle.It is not too much: just enough to tie one’s shoes, to scribble a simplified dino, or to run from the changing rooms to the gym doors if one takes the stairs two steps a time. It is not nearly enough to warm one’s leftovers from the day before, though, and there was a time Tadashi thought that 8 seconds were not enough to calm his heart before a serve, either.Tadashi's brief journey with anxiety.Written for Shooting Star! - A Yamaguchi Tadashi fanzine.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	relax

8 seconds. That is all the time a player has to serve after the whistle.

It is not too much: just enough to tie one’s shoes, to scribble a simplified dino, or to run from the changing rooms to the gym doors if one takes the stairs two steps a time. It is not nearly enough to warm one’s leftovers from the day before, though, and there was a time Tadashi thought that 8 seconds were not enough to calm his heart before a serve, either. 

Sitting on the bus on his way to his last ever Interhigh, Tadashi closes his eyes and counts down the seconds, mentally preparing for each and every serve he will make.

One, two, three, four, five… 

“Yachi-senpai,” Tadashi hears their first year wing spiker, Sato, speaking from the seat behind him.

“Yes?”

“Do you have medicine for nervousness? My knees won’t stop shaking.”

“Uhm… I have nothing useful on me at the moment, but I think it is important to voice your nervousness, so you are already on the right track, Sato-kun!” Yachi replies encouragingly.

Tadashi pricks up his ears to catch Sato’s words in vain. The kid’s mumble is barely audible, tuned out by the murmur of the engine and the noise in the back of the bus. Tadashi cracks his eyes open, glancing at his surroundings. Next to Tadashi, Kageyama sleeps with his head against the window, lips slightly parted. Tsukishima, eyes closed and headphones on, sits alone in his seat. Tadashi knows that he is not sleeping – nearly ten years of friendship taught him to read his friend like an open book. Music is Tsukki’s way of recharging and retreating to a safe, quiet place before the commotion of Nationals. Hinata has disappeared from his seat beside Tsukki, unsurprisingly. If Tsukki seeks solitude to focus, Hinata is the exact opposite: he thrives in the limelight. Tadashi finds him soon enough, by simply glancing toward the loudest group on the bus: Hinata sits with a group of second years, sharing stories from the preliminaries and comparing their future opponents to those of the past.

Tadashi shuffles in his seat in order to face Sato and Yacchan, sitting across each other in the row behind him. The boy is pale, and he sits shrunken in on himself. Tadashi exchanges a glance with Yacchan, then turns to the boy, flashes him a smile.

“You know, this is nostalgic!” he starts. “I remember Yacchan told me the same thing when we were off to our first Spring Tournament preliminaries.”

“Did I?” Yachi raises her brows.

“It didn’t help,” Tadashi continues, chuckling. “I was so nervous I nearly vomited all over the court.”

This gets the first year’s attention; his eyes go wide and his jaw drops a little. “You, senpai?”

“I have always been nervous before matches,” Tadashi nods. “And I still very much am.”

“Oh, I remember now,” Yacchan says, squirming closer to the edge of her seat in excitement to recall the scene. “It was right before the match against Aoba Johsai! You told me you flubbed your serve against them before and it cost the team a set!”

“Ugh,” Sato reacts, and even Tadashi’s stomach churns at the memory.

“I was lucky to have a good teacher who helped me to focus before the serve,” he says, telling Sato about the hero called Shimada Makoto, who saved Tadashi’s serves during his first Interhigh. Shimada-san still supports the Karasuno volleyball club – Tadashi sees him at almost every one of their matches, and they often exchange messages. He has even invited Tadashi to join their alumni volleyball association after graduation.

“That’s nice of him,” Sato comments on the story, and, if only a little, his shoulders relax. “It doesn’t help me much, though. I can’t look at a point in the distance while spiking the ball.”

“There are many ways to battle anxiety,” Tadashi says. “Hinata once told me that whenever he gets anxious, he recalls the most horrible thing that has ever happened to him; in comparison, nothing seems frightening anymore.”

“Hinata-senpai gets nervous too?” Sato asks back, voice hushed as if he was dealt something top secret just now.

“When we were first years, he had to run to the toilet every time before a match,” Tadashi nods. “Then he met all kinds of dangerous opponents right at the door of the restroom.”

“People like Ushiwaka,” Yachi adds. 

“To imagine you bump into someone in the restroom and two years later that person plays for the National Team,” Tadashi muses.

“My most frightening memory,” Sato says, steering the conversation back to its original topic. “I don’t think anything would come close to Interhigh…”

“There might not be ‘one true method’ to deal with anxiety,” Yachi says and she smiles encouragingly. “But remember, you are actually much braver and stronger than you believe.”

As the bus slows down, taking a sharp turn to enter the parking of the gymnasium, Tadashi smiles too. “Yacchan is right, you know,” he says. “We are here to play volleyball. The place might be bigger, and the opponents stronger, but the game is all the same and the rules did not change. It is still volleyball.”

“Right,” Sato says hesitantly.

“Think about it,” Tadashi pats the shoulder of his kouhai, then turns and pokes Kageyama in the face to wake him. “We have arrived.”

Kageyama opens his eyes, groggily murmurs a thank you, and rubs his face.

Tadashi has always admired this gentle calm Kageyama has before matches – Tadashi could list a million things to worry about, and Kageyama could rebut them all in a simple sentence while stuffing his face with food.

Tadashi did not lie to Sato about being nervous. His anxiety has never gone anywhere. As Tadashi descends the bus and walks into the gymnasium, as he warms up, as he readies for the first serve of his 3rd year Interhigh, his heart beats just as fast as it did the very first time he was put on court as a pinch server against Aoba Johsai.

The only difference is that his body no longer trembles; the ingrained movements he developed during the long drills of summer camps and regular practice no longer fail him, no matter how fast his heart beats or how loud his mind is. The ball no longer feels like an alien entity in his hands – it has become a part of him. Sure, some mistakes will be made, but he knows that whatever the outcome of this tournament will be, he will return home content.

Reaching Nationals for the third year in a row, Karasuno is no longer called flightless. The ones whispering as the all-black team makes its way to the gymnasium call them the ravenous crows instead. There is a crowd behind the black banner now, and the cheers are much more organized than they were back in Yamaguchi’s first year.

Yamaguchi smiles, throwing the ball up in the air.

Things have changed since first year. He has changed, too.


End file.
